Core Value 1. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.

To be honest out of all the core values this was likely the trickiest one for me, because when I work I tend to be very linear in how I produced my work. It would always be research topic , plot points to cover, and then write. I’d rarely ever back tracked in my work to make it better. But fortunately for me through this class I’ve slowly, but surely come to realize the importance of this. This development can be seen quite well in the White Paper assignment. At the beginning of working on it I did my usual of being linear in my process, but by doing that I reached a problem. While trying to find sources for my Whitepaper I couldn’t find sources that agreed with my specific hypothesis. It wasn’t until my first conference with him that he showed me how my sources shouldn’t necessarily bend to the will of my hypothesis, especially if it lacks the sources to back it. But instead to use those very sources to help better shape my hypothesis.

Core Value 2. My work demonstrates that I read critically, and that I placed texts into conversation with one another to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities. 

During the creation of my essays, especially on a topic as controversial as the one I’m doing, where people take , it is important that I understand the arguments made in these texts. If I overlook or misinterpret the substance I’m reading then I’d put my arguments into a hole that I wouldn’t be able to recover from. So to read critically is an essential part of my essays. The use of Critical reading in my writings is especially clear in my Causal argument. When researching the creation of Gypsy Crusader( a independent journalist turned white supremist). It was initially difficult to read into his creation due to the very few legitimate sources discussing him. But it was by reading/viewing critically of the material given that I was able to create a idea on how to approach his story. Prior to looking into him the idea was to paint him as a straight up victim to cancel culture. But as I continued to read about him(and his actions) it became clear that I couldn’t chalk him up as a black and white scenario but rather a gray situation . The creation of his persona is sad but at the same time you find it hard to sympathize with the man solely on his current actions. So through reading his material I was able to come up with the idea to tell his story and so how cancel culture pushed him to his breaking point, then from their the rest was him.

Core Value 3. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments.

While I believe that my work in general demonstrates that I analyze the audience that are reading either my work or others. My best example of being able to analyze the purpose/ contexts of my writing and others can be seen in my Safer Saws assignment. The assignment helped me demonstrate being able to recognize the the purpose of the the of each of the writings used for the different constituents as well as understanding the context of their claims. For example for the article relating to the Consumer safety advocate the speaker was explaining that despite Mr. Gass’s invention capability to save peoples fingers big companies refused to sell it do to the potential loss of profit. That they would much rather put money in front of their customers safety. This idea was even further highlighted in the article that I used for the Personal injury lawyers were it was quoted that “They worried that if a way to prevent severe injuries got traction in the market, they would face liability for accidents with conventional saws.”

This project also exposed me to view different points of the same argument, further helping me develop the ability to understand the purpose of the writers. In this particular case viewing all sides of the same argument gave me the chance to observe and understand the different plausible ways to present ideas like through videos, articles, personal accounts, even details from lawsuits.

Core Value 4: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my own ideas and interpretations.

At the time of creating my initial thesis, I didn’t realize that it was going to be tricky to find credible sources for the negative side effects of cancel culture. Based off what I was initially searching for in regards the negative effects of cancel culture I was stuck on the same 3 sources that frankly didn’t even give me much to work with. It wasn’t until having my first meeting with Professor Hodges that I was given some insight on good tactics for locating good sources to include in my work. By far the best advice he gave me was trying to find that one word that could open the flood gates in terms of good credible sources. As he explained to me that all it takes sometimes is to find a word that explains a term or process that related to your thesis(in my case cancel culture, but the example he used was related to celebrity sponsorship) . From their it would be easy to find the necessary sources. Shortly after that meeting it hit me what the word for my thesis was, shaming, or more accurately public shaming. Following that realization it was incredibly easy to discover sources that not only related to my thesis but could be used to support it. But my best use in my opinion of incorporating a source to my thesis could be found in my Rebuttal essay. In that essay I was trying to find a way to explain how by cancelling people for being racist( whether they were actually or not) would only produce an opposite effect since it would force them into that behavior. At the time I couldn’t find much for in in terms of cancel culture(although I did find one in regards to how shaming is losing its effects for rights groups) , but using the information given to me by the professor I was able to make a connection. Eventually I found an document that discussed how shaming smokers would only result in them smoking more due to a phycological effect called stereotype threat. This effect is when people are so anxious of being identified in a certain way that they end up confirming the behavior they are trying to disprove. Through this phenomenon I was able to make the connection back to my thesis.

Core Value 5. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation. 

In this day and age with internet and social media, skewed information is unfortunately a common thing to see. Whether its in sports, entertainment, law, or politics. While such pieces are made in order to either push an agenda or to simply mislead people it is none the less ridiculous to see. False information blatantly put out as the truth about a topic not only damages how people view the topic, but also anything associated with it. While working I try my best to avoid such fallacies. While working on my papers(particularly my essays) I made sure to collect and cite the sources that I either use in quotations or read for A better understanding of my topic. This can be best seen in my White Paper for my essay where I made sure to properly cite and mention all sources I used in my research for my essays. While I try my best to avoid making mistakes, it is important to note that I am human and mistakes are going to happen. This can be seen in my Causal original draft where I forget to cite my sources, a mistake which will be fixed in the rewrite.